


Drunken Words

by undernightlight



Series: #ProtectMarkCohen [2]
Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: Drinking, Gen, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Suicide, drunken Mark, friendship between Mark and Roger, fun night goes wrong, suicidal!Mark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 07:32:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13476693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undernightlight/pseuds/undernightlight
Summary: They go back to the loft for a fun night of drinking. I doesn't end up that way. Mark says things he probably wishes he didn't.





	Drunken Words

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off a work I read by RealityXIllusion called So Much for a Fun Night. I really liked the idea, so I wrote one inspired by it, but put my own twist on the story, and I hope you enjoy. Check out the original and support it!

It was Angel’s idea, of course, but they were all willing to have a night of drinks indoors. They collectively decided that Mark and Roger’s place would be best suitable for their makeshift tavern for the night, and they picked up a large quantity of an array of different drinks on their way back.

And it didn’t take too long for their blood alcohol levels to slowly rise, all except one: Mark. The filmmaker opted out of the drink, not saying anything, but eventually Roger realised that he hadn’t drank anything other than water all night. Quickly, cups of varying sizes and volume were being shoved into his open hands containing god know what, and with everyone staring at him, he drank. He didn’t intend to get shit-faced drunk, it just sort of happened. He drank what Roger gave him at first, then Mimi gave him the end of hers, and it strong, whatever it was. Collins gave him a beer and by that point he drank whatever he was handed. While everyone else was tipsy, becoming more so, Mark went from being sober to being off his face.

They sat around the loft in different places. Collins and Angel were on the couch, Tom sat upright with Angel’s head in his lap. Roger and Mimi were sat on a chair together, Mimi practically sitting in Roger’s lap, cosy and comfy wrapped together. Joanne and Maureen where sat on the floor, arms around each other and smiling. Mark sat on their raised metal table, swinging his legs and drinking away, a lazy smile on his face.

Angel suggested truth or dare. What were they, young teens? But nobody objected. It was childish but it helped them all forget where there were, the world around them and their unfortunate circumstances, so they played.

Joanne picked dare, and Mimi made her eat a teaspoon of cinnamon, and she was coughing, while everyone else was in varying degrees of fits of laughter; Joanne found it funny too, so it was okay to laugh. Collins chose truth, and he had to tell an embarrassing story from when he was younger; he told the story of his first rejection, this girl he’d fawned over for a year flat out rejected him, in front of his entire school, as loud as possible, making sure everybody knew, and everybody knew. Roger was dared to chug some concoction of liquids and dissolvable solids found in the kitchen, and he scrunched up his face at just the smell, but downed in all in as few gulps as possible. There was some gherkin juice, orange juice, vodka, salt, chilli powder and cold coffee, to mention a few, all mixed into this one plastic cup, and Roger drank it all.

It was all childish, but it made them all smile.

Eventually, the game found its way to Mark. He was drunk, but in a good mood. Everyone was somewhere on the scale though, nobody was close to being every remotely sober. Collins asked:

“Truth or dare?”

And Mark replied:

“Truth.” 

His speech was a little wobbly, but coherent, understandable. Angel and Collins began whispering, Mimi bounding up from her spot on Roger to weigh in on the conversation, picking a suitably embarrassing or torturous question to answer. He looked on fondly as Angel giggled to herself, and Collins and Mimi nodded enthusiastic as whatever she’d said, clearly deciding what they wanted to know. Angel did the honor:

“Tell us something that nobody knows. Something surprising that we wouldn’t suspect.”

He thought about it. Something came to his mind quickly, something he, in a way, wanted to talk about, more needed to, he wasn’t sure. It was dark thought, and he didn’t want to ruin the mood, but the more he tried to think of something else, the more he couldn’t think of anything else. Was this the right time to bring up something like this? Was this the right situation?

“Stop thinking about it, just tell us!” Maureen said. He nearly told Maureen once, when they were still dating. He felt terrible that day, and he thought that maybe if somebody knew, he wouldn’t feel so alone, that he would feel that somebody understood what he was going through. He didn’t in the end; he remembers her coming home, angry about something trivial, but angry nonetheless, shouting about this and that, how terrible everything was, and any thought about telling her dissipated as he calmed her down, brought her back to Earth. It didn’t make him feel any better, but it was what he did; he made sure people were happy, that they had what they needed. Maybe that was part of the problem.

“I’m trying! I don’t know what to say.”

“You’ve got something, but you’re thinking about it too much. You’ve got that face on when you think too hard,” Roger added. He nearly told Roger a couple of times, hoping maybe Roger could help. But stuff always happened. Roger found out that both him and April were HIV+, which hit them all hard. April died, and Roger was distraught, so he couldn’t tell him then, especially not then. There were times when nothing was going wrong, that Mark came so close, but in the end, he just couldn’t do it. It was only more toxic for him, he found, when he thought about telling Roger; he became worked up, started over analysing everything, sweating when he was cold and shivering when he was hot. He wouldn’t be able to think straight and his legs couldn’t hold him up. Eventually, he stopped thinking about telling anyone. Things had been better recently, but it didn’t go away. Mark doubted these feelings would ever go away.

“Okay, okay, fine, but you asked for it, remember that.” If he was sober, this wouldn’t be happening, he would’ve been able to think of something else to say, he would’ve lied when he was supposed to tell the truth, but he wouldn’t say this. But he was drunk. The future was nowhere close to him, he was barely in the now, so this would be a problem for future sober Mark to deal with...though that probably wasn’t the best thing to do considering. He took a deep breathe in before he spoke:

“I wish I was dead.”

He smiled as everyone looked at him, not knowing what to think. They all looked stunned, and silence filled the loft. He gulped down whatever was left in his cup, before getting up and wandering over to the kitchen, filling his cup with something else. When he turned back, faces had changed. Collins just looked sad, his hand had stopped running though Angel’s hair, who was now sat up, hand covering her mouth in shock. Maureen’s eyes were close to watering, not believing what she was hearing as Joanne kept her steady, looking concerned herself. Mimi looked at him like she almost didn’t believe him, eyes wide and mouth open. Roger looked like he was about to cry, looking at him with an unfamiliar and unreadable expression. Mark smiled as everyone looked up at him, not knowing what to think.

He took a long drink from his freshly filled cup, emptying half it’s content swifty, before topping it up and wandering his way back over the his metal table. He jumped up, and everyone continued to keep their eyes trained on him.

“What?” He said, his eyes still bright, smiling, like what he said wasn’t starting to shatter the worlds of the people around him. Joanne was the first to speak up, her voice suddenly dry:

“You...you wish you were…..” She couldn’t finish the sentence, she didn’t even want to finish the thought. How could he even think that? How could he want that?

“Dead? I suppose so. I mean, it comes and goes, but in general, yeah.” He spoke so casually. This was something Mark had come to terms with a long time ago, something that was apart of him now, and he accepted that as fact. His smile had lessened a little, but there was one still across his face. His eyes jumped from person to person as they all continued to look at him, but they were still wide, like when a child begged for the last cookie in the jar.

“Have you ever…” Mimi spoke up, barely audible, grappling onto Roger’s hands as she shifted closer to him on the arm of the chair she sat.

“Attempted?” And she nodded her head in conformation, slow and hesitant, like she didn’t really want to know the answer. And Mark nodded in reply to her, more steady than she had, with more conviction, drinking from the plastic cup that had seemed to weld itself to his right hand.

“When?” Collins asked, not quite sure what he was looking for in whatever response he got.

“The first or most recent?” He waited for speech, which came from Maureen after a thick, empty silence.

“First.” Her voice was quiet too, but stronger than Mimi’s had been. She knew what she wanted to know now, what she felt she deserved to know, he could hear it in the way she spoke. She used to use that tone all the time when they were dating, when he would try to get out of something, and somehow she convinced him to continue with the path he was on. She used to use when they argued, when she put her foot down and he’d lost, which was every argument they ever had. He owed her nothing, he knew that, but he decided to start talking anyway. He wasn’t sure why, it wasn’t really relevant, but he talked nonetheless.

“I was...fifteen? Sixteen?....Sixteen. I was sixteen and I’d had a rotten day,” he began. He swivelled where he sat, facing towards the window before laying back, bringing his feet to the end of the table, knees in the air, as he sat his cup to his side, bringing his hands to rest on his stomach and chest. He stared at the ceiling as he spoke, “School was terrible; my grades were slipping and so was my attention. Some bullies from my class found me on my way home, I walked see, and they started on me, punching at first, kicking when I fell to the ground. I was spitting blood, my head was spinning. I had my arms curled around my head, and somehow I’d pushed my back against a wall to hopefully prevent too much damage. I could handle all that, I’d been beaten up before, thought it was much worse that day. It was when they took my bag...they dragged me around and pulled my bag off me, opened it and rummaged through and found my camera. They stomped on it until there were only tiny bits of plastic left on the ground.”

He chuckled at the memory, but he wasn’t sure why he did that. It wasn’t a particularly fond memory. Maybe he just laughed to stop from crying, he wasn’t sure. He continued once he’d composed himself:

“When they finally left me alone, it took me at least ten minutes before I even moved. I managed to sift through some of what was left, salvaging a few frames of film from the rubble. I gathered my stuff and went home. My father screamed at me when I got in; I was late home, bloody and I’d broken his precious camera, so he wasn’t happy. I locked myself in my room for days, occasionally venturing out, but for no longer than five minutes each time. I missed school, I didn’t talk to anyone, I didn’t really eat, I just slept or stared blankly at walls. On day four, I went to the bathroom cabinet and gathered what I could. I should’ve gone back to my room, but I didn’t, and I forgot to lock the bathroom room...when they heard my choking and vomiting my parents came barging in, they hadn’t seen me for days, saw the empty bottles of pills and the open bleach...and they started panicking and shouting as I emptied into the toilet. They rushed me to the hospital and I was there for a week or so, laying in that hospital bed, being forced to talk to whatever psychiatrist they thought would help.”

He rolled his head back and forth against the table, still just looking up. Nobody spoke, maybe they were waiting to see if he’d finished. Collins spoke after the silence was becoming suffocating:

“Mark, I’m so sorry, I-”

“Recent.” Mark looked over to Roger, who finally opened his mouth to let out a sound. He still looked like he might cry, and that was the worse thing to Mark, that he’d hurt Roger, that he’d upset him in any way. Roger wasn’t even looking at him, looking at the ground somewhere behind him. Mark could see his jaw clench from where he sat, on the other side of the room, and whatever smile that remained of Mark’s face dropped. “When most recently?” Mark could hear his voice waver as he spoke, and he saw how Roger shut is mouth instantly, returning it to it’s tense position.

“A few months ago. I’d been going through a rough patch, it happens. I got really low and I….just didn’t see it ending. I thought, why not?...It’s a question I find I ask myself a lot.” He sat himself up now, but didn’t pick up his drink. His tone had changed. He was laughing before, smiling, his voice light, but now when he spoke he could hear the weight of his words, he could hear all of the pressure he felt, all of the misery and the sadness and the constant internal pain. He didn’t know if the others could hear it the way he did, but they clearly saw his approach change. “I don’t think anything had happened in particular. I hadn’t been feeling alright for a while and I think I was finally fed up with feeling that way. I don’t think I even had the energy to try properly then, I just ended up ill for a while.”

“Was that...when you told up you’d gotten food poisoning?” Joanne asked, and he nodded, his eyes begin to become unfocused, everything becoming a blurring of colour.

He had nothing else to say. His head still span from the alcohol, but for other reasons now too. He wanted to sleep, to wake up and realise he never said a word, that he’d dreamt it, that it would never be spoken of again, but he knew he was hoping for too much. The air in the room became almost haunting in a way, as no one spoke. Mark looked around at everyone, who all just seemed to just be staring nowhere, just thinking. He caught Angel’s eyes at one point, but she looked away as soon as eye contact was made, turning attention to her fidgeting hands.

“I think it would be best if you all go now,” Roger eventually said, still not looking up from his distant focal point. No one replied at first, but they nodded, stood, slowly approached both Roger and Mark, hugging them, patting their arms, whispering kindness to them both. Mimi kissed Roger on the cheek before she left, and he gave her a faint smile, but it was sad and tired and hollow, and Mark felt terrible about it, but everyone was gone now. He could go to sleep, wake up and maybe he’d forget everything and nobody would dare bring it up.

Mark slid off of the table. Roger hadn’t moved from the chair. Mark began cleaning up, moving cups to the sink. Roger just stared for a while.

Eventually, Roger stood. His eyes weren’t watery anymore; they’d become hard, colder than before. Mark turned when he heard movement and he saw his friend move towards him, and Mark was suddenly very scared. Despite the cold, he could see fire in Roger, flames ready to ignite all around him.

“How come you’ve never said anything until now?” Roger’s voice was stable now, but not flat. Mark could hear so much in the words he spoke. He could hear the betrayal, it wasn’t subtle, and he could hear the hurt and he could hear the sadness and concern and everything that was encompassed this situation.

“I could never find the time it seems.” Mark didn’t look when he replied, turning away as began washing the glasses he’d collected from around the apartment.

“You couldn’t find the time to tell me you wanted to kill yourself? And that you’ve wanted to do so since you were sixteen?” Roger raised his voice now. Mark could hear everything, and he hated it. He didn’t know how he was supposed to reply, so he didn’t, he just kept washing the dirty dishes. Roger grabbed his shoulder, forced him to turn around, and startled, Mark dropped the glass in the sink, causing it shatter on contact with the metal basin, but he didn’t turn back when he heard it break. He didn’t care that it broke, neither did Roger. “How come you couldn’t find the time?!”

“What was I supposed to say? Hey Roger, I want to die and I have for nearly as long as I can remember. I’ve tried to kill myself multiple times and I’ve never succeeded, and I hate myself for it every single time I wake up and I realise I’m still breathing. I hate that I have to go on with my life when all I want is to die!”

He tensed when he finished; he physically felt his stomach lurch forward within him and he felt his throat clog. He felt his hand shake steadily at his side when his heart was anything but, beating away at an irregular pace, ready to tear itself from his body. Roger just looked at him, not knowing what he was supposed to say to that. Mark looked at him, waiting for something, anything. Nothing. Mark pushed his way passed Roger then, making his way to his room. He needs to sleep, needs to forget this ever happened.

“Mark,” Roger called after him, and within a second, Mark was spun around again to face him. He could find any words when he looked at Roger, he just shook his head, but he wasn’t sure why or in reference to what. He was expected words from Roger now, a raised voice with anger and pain, a quiet voice filled with hurt and concern, but he didn’t get that. Roger just stepped closer and wrapped his arms around him, holding him still. Mark didn’t know what to do at first, it was the last thing he expected or deserved now, but he eventually moved his arms to Roger’s back, accepting the hug even if he felt he shouldn’t.

Roger didn’t let go when Mark first loosened his arms, so Mark tightened his arms again. Roger didn’t let go the second time either, and by the third time, Mark realised he wasn’t getting away easy, he truly allowed himself to be absorbed. He tried to release all the tension he could, to get rid of any stiffness is his joints that showed. His hands curled around Roger’s shirt, fisting the fabric, giving him something else to cling to, something that seemed so familiar. And he was just held.

Roger held him. He wasn’t going to lose anybody else, he wouldn’t allow it, he wouldn’t. So he clung to Mark because Mark’s life depended on this moments and moments to come and he would do everything in his power to make sure that these moments counted. And he held Mark, and he went from stillness to shaking. Roger didn’t know what was happening until he heard a strangled wimper escape his lips, and then he knew that Mark had broken. The wimpers became full cries and tears fell, soaking through his shirt. Mark shook more violently, and buried his face into Roger’s shoulder and chest as his movement. Roger held him closer, he could feel Mark pull against his shirt, hands clenching tighter, and he allowing the silence to be filled by Mark and Mark alone.

He didn’t know hold long they stood there, him holding Mark, but the shaking stopped, the tears stopped and the filmmaker went slack in his arms, and Roger realised he’d exhausted himself. He carefully, as not to wake him, scooped him up in his arms and took him to his bed, gently laying him down. He was thankful for once that Mark was the kind of person that didn’t make his bed in the morning, as it meant pulling the duvet over his smaller frame was much easier. He removed his glasses, folding them and setting them on the bedside crate.

Roger looked at him, and despite his face being red and puffy, he looked so peaceful. He would never of guessed that he was dealing with such turmoil just beyond the surface of what he shared with them. He would never of guessed that he would ever feel like that. He would not lose anybody else.

He kicked off his shoes, pushing them to the side of the room, before walking around to the other side of the bed and laying down. He didn’t get under the duvet, he was too warm already, but he refused to leave Mark alone tonight. He couldn’t do it. So he stared at the ceiling, thinking about everything Mark said, and made sure he’d be there for the small one if he ever needed someone to talk to, to cry to, to just sit in silence with if that was what he needed.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this work. I liked writing it, even if it's hard sometimes to put your favourites in such serious situations.


End file.
